Is the Post Office going to exist in 50 years?

I was out for lunch with a bunch of our managers today and we were discussing last night's episode of Lost. For those who don't watch, it's basically a soap opera for both men and women that is completely addicting for those that watch and completely mystifying for those that don't.

So one of our managers who doesn't watch starts to talk about his new favorite show Startup Junkies which is television specifically programmed for HD TV and is an ongoing story about startup called Earth Class Mail.  If I understand it correctly, the idea is that people give up their mail boxes and have everything mailed to this company where they will sort, categorize, store, and retrieve their mail all from a browser.  Interesting concept and seems to be taking Paytrust to the next level for everything other than bills.  I imagine they'll have some of the same challenges as we had with consumer adoption and automation.  I hope it works.

Anyway, what was my point?  Oh yeah, is the Post Office a dying business?  When is the last time you got a personal communication in the mail?  My Mom still mails me birthday cards but I can't think of another instance.  All my bills go to Paytrust, all my personal communications are email/phone, so the only thing that still comes in my mailbox is junk, bank statements, junk, and stupid prospectuses for class action law suits that I imagine somebody makes money on, just not me.

The Post Office just announced their third postal hike in three years.  They spend a fortune on gas, first class mail volume is going down, and they are stuck spreading the decreasing revenue they make over the same number of fixed delivery routes.  Each time postage goes up, we at Billtrust cheer because that means electronic billing is even more attractive and we get more customers.  It also leads to less US Mail volume because billers/advertisers look for alternative ways to reach their customers/prospects.  Which means less volume.  Which means the post office needs to raise rates to cover their fixed routes and employees.  This is a Vicious Circle that I don't see ending without a deep drop in energy prices which seems unlikely.

So where do things end up?

I don't think it happens over night but over the next 50 years my bet is that there comes a point where it is just not cost effective to have mail delivery service for a bunch of catalogs.  Everything is ultimately delivered electronically.  Don't have a computer or web access?  Go to a web cafe.  Think this is crazy.  There is something like 10-15% of the populatation that is unbanked that literally has to walk in to payment centers to pay their bills (probably not reading this post).

Or maybe I'm wrong.

Comments

[Kate]

BTW- our record is 22 catalogs in one day. Mid-Oct 2007.